Ellis subsequently posted an apology addressed to Bigelow on The Daily Beast, admitting that his language had become "a problem".

Ellis said that he wasn't worried about offending his 364,000 followers, adding: "No, it's become a problem for the Twitter Me; my Twitter consciousness, just wanting to have fun and be a bit of a provocateur in 140 characters. And then realizing... err, that's not really fun or that provocative. It goes beyond douchiness into another more insensitive realm."

He claimed that the change of heart came after speaking to other women about the tweets, including his own mother.

He continued: "I'm not even saying that Kathryn Bigelow was hurt or even noticed the tweets or even cared. I imagine her balls are bigger than that. I thought that in the Bigelow tweets people might find a certain truth... about the hypocrisy of the world, of the Hollywood mindset, beautiful women in the movie biz, reverse sexism, etc.

"But they ultimately revealed a much more layered sexism that, I guess I thought as a gay man, I could get away with."